4 ms·

Does anyone have audio of the different sounds of drives he describes? Such a fascinating article.

zwieback 8y ago
I don't have audio recordings but 30 years later I can still hear the sound of my Apple ][ floppy drive re-homing itself, which was a scary sound. The track-to-track sound he's describing was very pleasant though.
- icedchai 8y ago
  I remember that "grinding" sound, decades later! I haven't boot an Apple II since 1990...
- kkylin 8y ago
  Especially the sound it makes as it tries to read a disk with bad sectors. I can still hear that in my mind.
  - zwieback 8y ago
    That was always a sad day, especially if you saved up two week of pocket money to buy that floppy.
- acomjean 8y ago
  There was a "Beagle Bros" software program that would alternatively turn left/right floppy drives on and it would sound like a train.. It would go faster and faster. I remember running it and worrying I borked my mom's floppy drives. But thankfully it didn't. I thought it was on "silicon salad" but I don't see it. Unless its "text train". Maybe it was online from Nibble magazine. https://archive.org/stream/Beagle_Bros-Silicon_Salad#page/n0/mode/2up https://archive.org/stream/Beagle_Bros-Silicon_Salad#page/n0...
- joezydeco 8y ago
  Instead of having some kind of switch or sensor to know when the read head was at track 0, the stepper motor just banged the head repeatedly against the metal stop until it was sure things were in alignment. This was that "chukchukchukchuk" sound you heard. I remember playing around with the delays in that routine to make the head move at different frequencies. With a little bit of playing around you could make the drive play music.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    That scared the hell out of me when I was in 6th grade and first tried to format a disk. I thought I broke my computer.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    With a little bit of playing around you could make the drive play music. That's basically the same thing you had to do to make the Apple play music anyway -- do a LDA to a certain address with various timings to toggle the 1 bit speaker. Amazingly enough, you could do legible text to speech with it -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Automatic_Mouth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Automatic_Mouth
    - joezydeco 8y ago
      Absolutely true....although I'm not sure the Disk ][ head was meant to be vibrated at 400 Hz like a paper cone speaker was. =)
  - oh5nxo 8y ago
    Also, you could find the sweet spot in step interval, making seeking super smooth and quiet. Oh, this was with a PC, Apple drives must have been optimally adjusted by default ;)
    - joezydeco 8y ago
      This was more about homing the head, not the stepper motor noise between tracks.
- kirubakaran 8y ago
  Yup, I still vividly recall the unnerving "RAT-tat-tat" of my Apple //c floppy drive though it has been over 25 years (gah!) since I last heard it.
pvg 8y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WkGTeDqkdg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WkGTeDqkdg There are probably better ones but that should get you started and give you search terms.
ddingus 8y ago
https://youtu.be/Dub4nraPLlQ https://youtu.be/Dub4nraPLlQ
dEnigma 8y ago
This great video from 8-bit guy has sounds from Apple II drives and some other examples, together with various technical details and views of the drives insides: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHRc-QMoUE4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHRc-QMoUE4

I don't have audio recordings but 30 years later I can still hear the sound of my Apple ][ floppy drive re-homing itself, which was a scary sound. The track-to-track sound he's describing was very pleasant though.

icedchai 8y ago
I remember that "grinding" sound, decades later! I haven't boot an Apple II since 1990...
kkylin 8y ago
Especially the sound it makes as it tries to read a disk with bad sectors. I can still hear that in my mind.
- zwieback 8y ago
  That was always a sad day, especially if you saved up two week of pocket money to buy that floppy.
acomjean 8y ago
There was a "Beagle Bros" software program that would alternatively turn left/right floppy drives on and it would sound like a train.. It would go faster and faster. I remember running it and worrying I borked my mom's floppy drives. But thankfully it didn't. I thought it was on "silicon salad" but I don't see it. Unless its "text train". Maybe it was online from Nibble magazine. https://archive.org/stream/Beagle_Bros-Silicon_Salad#page/n0/mode/2up https://archive.org/stream/Beagle_Bros-Silicon_Salad#page/n0...
joezydeco 8y ago
Instead of having some kind of switch or sensor to know when the read head was at track 0, the stepper motor just banged the head repeatedly against the metal stop until it was sure things were in alignment. This was that "chukchukchukchuk" sound you heard. I remember playing around with the delays in that routine to make the head move at different frequencies. With a little bit of playing around you could make the drive play music.
- scarface74 8y ago
  That scared the hell out of me when I was in 6th grade and first tried to format a disk. I thought I broke my computer.
- scarface74 8y ago
  With a little bit of playing around you could make the drive play music. That's basically the same thing you had to do to make the Apple play music anyway -- do a LDA to a certain address with various timings to toggle the 1 bit speaker. Amazingly enough, you could do legible text to speech with it -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Automatic_Mouth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Automatic_Mouth
  - joezydeco 8y ago
    Absolutely true....although I'm not sure the Disk ][ head was meant to be vibrated at 400 Hz like a paper cone speaker was. =)
- oh5nxo 8y ago
  Also, you could find the sweet spot in step interval, making seeking super smooth and quiet. Oh, this was with a PC, Apple drives must have been optimally adjusted by default ;)
  - joezydeco 8y ago
    This was more about homing the head, not the stepper motor noise between tracks.
kirubakaran 8y ago
Yup, I still vividly recall the unnerving "RAT-tat-tat" of my Apple //c floppy drive though it has been over 25 years (gah!) since I last heard it.

pvg 8y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WkGTeDqkdg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WkGTeDqkdg There are probably better ones but that should get you started and give you search terms.

ddingus 8y ago

https://youtu.be/Dub4nraPLlQ https://youtu.be/Dub4nraPLlQ

dEnigma 8y ago

This great video from 8-bit guy has sounds from Apple II drives and some other examples, together with various technical details and views of the drives insides: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHRc-QMoUE4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHRc-QMoUE4